


postcards from the moon

by erlkoenig



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: M/M, claim that we can outrun fate, every time I want to write something it always comes back to these two, just get up round the corner and just keep on running straight, unapologetic angsty fluff, we say that hope aint ever lost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24939055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erlkoenig/pseuds/erlkoenig
Summary: How did they get here? How can they read each other so well in so short a time when before they could hardly look at each other.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	postcards from the moon

**Author's Note:**

> This is pure self indulgent sad fluff. The Burden of Sea Captains by The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit is a good song for these two.

There is still time to turn back, double back and try their luck with the ships. They’ll never sail again but they can take their axes to them and — and then what? 

Francis scrubs at his eyes, the cold and white light from the snow burning at the corners and under the lids until they’re swollen, eyelashes breaking off like dark icicles.

Somewhere behind him he can hear James’ voice over the still air; a dramatic pause in his story and then the punchline, delivered like an actor on the global stage and the men laugh somehow. He doesn’t know how he does it, doesn’t want to know because his own attempt would only be a stilted, exhausted facsimile. 

Once upon a time he had the charm and that good old Irish gift for craic but he’s long since buried all of that in the pack ice and never looked back. Nothing grows here but bitterness and hunger but he can imagine in ten years time there will be something growing out of his bones and all he’s left behind. 

There’s a hand on his shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts and James falls heavy onto the rock beside him, still grinning from a joke well received. 

“Brooding again?”

“There’s little else to do.”

James hums in that boyish way that says he disagrees but won’t say it out loud. Francis leans against him and he’s right, there’s this to do, however small. 

“I thought about going back.”

“To Ireland?”

“To the ships.”

James raises an eyebrow and nudges him with his shoulder to say,  _ elaborate.  _ Francis grunts, waves his hand,  _ just a thought _ , and James nods.

How did they get here? How can they read each other so well in so short a time when before they could hardly look at each other. 

No, that’s a lie. James looked at him all the time and Francis was afraid to look back, afraid that James would see him for what he was: a broken, tired man who had given up long ago. A man who had only said yes to this godforsaken attempt to find the passage because he knew, he  _ hoped,  _ he would never come back. 

And now? Now he wants nothing more than to be on land again, bundled under blankets by a fire drinking tea and eating biscuits well into the night while James talks and talks of all his adventures and misadventures and exploits until they lose their voices from laughing. 

“Say we did double back now, how long do you think we’d have until we burnt the last of the ships for warmth?”

Francis stares at the ground, sighs, shrugs, scrubs his hand over his eyes and they ache with it. “Hard to say. Depends on how many make the trip back, how many come and how many try to push on for the river.”

“And if leads open?”

“Then what’s left of the ships and us will sink.”

James hums, and it’s a different sound than before, one that plainly, simply says,  _ well shit. _

The silence passes over them, settling like a cloud and bringing more cold with it. Francis thinks to put an arm around James, rub his hand over his back to try to keep the other man warm but there are too many eyes. He’s not concerned about court martials but morale, what little is left. 

He keeps his hands in his laps.

James barks out a laugh that turns into a giggle, that turns into an all out guffaw that has him shaking and holding his sides with it. 

Francis stares, wide-eyes. “Have you lost your mind?”

“I was just thinking,” James says when the laughter subsides, when he can catch his breath again. “Of trying to navigate our way back home on a raft lashed together with what remained of the ships. Two Robinson Crusoe’s doing the best we can.”

Francis grins, lopsided, and leans to press harder against James, just a moment before straightening. 

“One of us has to be Friday.”

“Friday was too competent to be either of us, wouldn’t you say?”

Francis snorts. “Point made.”

“Do you think there’s a northwest passage, Frauncis?”

“If there is, and if we survive this, I will personally brick it up.”

“Awful,” James chuckles, flashes him a crooked grin and for a wild, wonderful moment, Francis wants to lean in and kiss those frost-chapped lips. Call it loneliness, say it’s because he wanted to feel the warmth of another human, admit that it’s that terrible love he’s tried to ignore all his life, it didn’t matter anymore.

There’s something in James’ eyes now that says he knows, and the other man swallows tight, glances side to side for witnesses and Francis is too stricken to lean away because there is always someone watching. But James is braver than him, perhaps braver than he’s ever been, and the press of lips against his own is brief and wonderful and when they part he’s chasing them for more. 

Maybe no one has seen, maybe they’ve all seen. What does it matter now?

They’ll share a bedroll like they have done but everything has changed and every place they touch will be more electric, will be heavy with more meaning than idle hands and shifting bodies trying to get comfortable among the cold and rocky, frozen ground.

Suddenly, the thought of going home shifts into something else. A dream, where they take what lumber they can cut apart and make a home of their own among the bergs and the ice shelves. They hunt together during the day and hold each other through the night. When summer comes and the ice on the ground melts maybe something wild and arctic will spring up through the permafrost and they can say  _ we made it, best we could.  _

Francis blinks and the dream fades. But now he knows, knows what he wants to do.

“We’ll make a push for the river and hope we find a hunting party.”

“Frauncis?”

“James, we may never go back to England, but—“ He cant bring himself to say it. It sticks in his throat, frozen there and he swallows hard around it, tries to make the words come but in this, like so many other times, he’s a coward.

But James, always braver, nods. He understands, and there’s really no need for words between them any more. “Home is where you make it.”

“Something like that.” Francis stares down at his hands, at the cold-bitten red fingers poking through the holes in his gloves. 

James leans against him, hums. “Give me another minute of this, and I’ll go tell the men we are making another push for it.”

Francis nods and they sit like that longer than a minute, longer than five minutes or maybe even ten. When James finally stands it’s cold where he used to be but Francis doesn’t mourn the loss. 

Maybe there will be time for that later, some other time long from now. 

_ Maybe tomorrow.  _

Maybe, and maybe not. Francis stands and stretches his aching bones. 

In the distance he can hear James’ voice. 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr


End file.
